Blog Prompt - Does Social Media help?

There are many ways people utilise social media to help get certain ideas or political messages out to other people. Social Media acts a good tool to communicate with a large group of people to share and spread this message, however not everyone has the same views and some people don't want to have political or even religious views forced upon them. Riots and protest happen all over the world.

In 2011 in England and 29 year old black male was shot dead by police as a results many people protested in the forms of riots in the London area. Many people of all generations and race took part in these riots. Several violent crimes happened, police vehicles were destroyed, shops, businesses and even homes were robbed and damaged. It was a huge deal and took many efforts to stop.

What does this have to do with social media? Well these riots started out in London and ended in cities all over the UK, the media called this 'copycat violence' because of what happened in London other cities started to protest aswell. Social Media played a role in these riots as many rioters used Facebook, BBM to organise their activities and the places they were going to rob next, they would post pictures showing their faces of the stuff they had stole or crimes they committed. Twitter acted as a place people could voice their opinions on the riots and where the message spread about the riots started. It seemed like everyone was talking about the riots because it was in the media and part of social media for weeks.

In this case social media was not the initial cause for the riots, it just help spread people message and make people aware of what was happening. In general I think this is the case for most political and religious movements, that social media isn't the cause people just use it to reach out to others as it is a good tool to speak to several of people all over the country. At the end of the day if people were not talking about it on social media or online then it wouldn't be in the media. Nowadays people just get out their smartphones and record what they are witnessing and then upload it on the internet for people to see. Just because some people upload this or video the protest, with the London riots videos were taken and CCTV footage was used to show other people. The internet and social media just act as a tool to show others what is happening around the world, sometimes it may help the movement and other times in may not it just depends on the amount of coverage and involvement people have. People like to be involved and able to relate to the subject, also generally if the government or political people are to blame people tend to be more involved as it will effect them.